To my DADA class
by wanderingmaiden
Summary: or, How Ronald Weasley got his Arachnophobia. A response to the Taboo Challenge.


Memo

To: Professor Lupin's 3rd year DADA class

Re: Boggarts

When I was very little, young enough to not recognize the difference between wizard and muggle, light and dark, good and bad, the world was a wonderful place. When I was hungry, I was fed. When I was dirty, I was cleaned. When I wanted attention, I was picked up and rocked and sung to be a sweet voice. All in all, life was good.

But like all good things, my infancy eventually came to an end, and I had to learn that not all things in the world are good and kind and warm and sweet. Some things are angry and cold and painful and harsh. The spiders taught me that.

I had just turned three and my parents hosted a birthday party for me. It was a small affair—my father's job at the ministry paid very little—but it had sunshine and cake and smiling faces, so I was happy. Like many my age, I was also very curious. Everything from the gnomes in the garden to my parents' scarlet hair fascinated me. And so it was that I decided to explore the world and discover even more wonderful, beautiful things. The idea of something being bad did not even occur to me. In my world, such things did not exist.

Sometime between the cake and the organized games, I set out on my journey, armed with my favorite orange blanket and an ever-warm bottle of milk. The three of us wandered down the meadow toward the forest—which my parents had never brought me to before and thus were the greatest mystery of the Earth—ready for adventure.

I am not sure what my three-year-old mind expected to find in those woods. A unicorn perhaps, as my mother seemed very fond of storybooks in which they rescued damsels from getting hopelessly lost as they went flower-picking in meadows (even though I was not a girl, she clearly wanted one at the time). Or maybe a magical ruby which would give me great powers to fly and turn invisible and swim underwater and do anything else I could possibly imagine. Whatever I imagined, however, was far from what I found.

By the time I reached the edge of the trees, I had walked quite a distance (for a three-year-old who was used to being carried around) and felt rather exhausted. So I took cover by the roots of a tree, orange blanket under my head, to take a nap.

It was not without a significant amount of disorientation that I awoke. I immediately noticed that I was not in my comfortable crib and I opened my mouth to wail for my mother when I remembered my great adventurous plans. Surely I had enough time to explore before the sky darkened, I reasoned, and so I moved deeper into the tangled complex of trees and bushes. And I had a wonderful time, tasting berries that looked familiar—thank God there were no poisonous ones in there—spying a few rabbits hopping along in happy groups, playing with shiny rocks I found along my trail.

After a while of this merrymaking, the sun moved closer to the horizon, the colored streaks in the sky making the leaves above reflect a eerie glow on the forest floor below. I shivered, the sun's descent had cooled the air dramatically, and wanted to go back to my warm home where there were smiles and food. I bravely marched back through the trees.

An eternity later—or maybe only ten minutes, I could not tell—the last rays of sun were disappearing behind the hills and the moon glowed softly above, illuminating beautiful shiny webs made of silver light above. I had yet to see the exit to the forest. This confused me greatly. In my world of instant gratification, I merely had to desire something and I happened. Even if that something was covering a distance that had taken me hours to meander earlier in only five minutes later. I realized the problem: I had not cried out for my wish to be fulfilled. And so I opened my mouth and released a shrill yell.

I heard a rustling from above, then a soft thud and something landed in my hair. I smiled, it was probably one of those spinning things that took us places very fast and windy and fun! I reached up and pulled it out of my hair. It was a black fuzzy ball a bit larger than my fist, which wriggled in my grasp and poked me lightly. I giggled and squeezed it more tightly, thinking of the left-over cake that would be waiting for me.

A sharp prick on my finger. Sudden pain and the realization that I had dropped the fuzzy. Eight shiny orbs looking out of the green grass. And knowing that even the sweet voices could not save me before the universe disappeared into darkness.

"Ronald? RONALD!" I heard loud voices shouting for me, but all I could emit was a small cry before the throbbing in my small hand overwhelmed me again.

Warmth, sweetness, peace are with me as I awake a third time. At seeing my eyes flutter open, my mother cries, a mixture of relief and frustration. "Ronald Weasley, don't you ever go off alone like that again! We were worried sick! And that spider could have killed you!" Her voice has become sour, shrill and unpleasant. I remember to relate this to the unfamiliar word "spiders." Spiders are bad, I concluded. They hurt and take away the heat and smiles and kindness and light. That lesson stuck with me.

So don't judge when you see my boggart in class. Don't laugh and point and say, "C'mon, a bug? Your greatest fear is a bug?" Respect my fear, because it comes from experience, and isn't some irrational invention of an overactive mind. They stole my innocence. And I'm just trying to save yours.

Sincerely,

Ronald Weasley

President of Hogwarts' AA

(Arachnophobes Anonymous)

xxxxxXXXXXxxxxx

This was a response to **The Taboo Challenge**:

"I'm sure most of us know what a taboo is (in the original sense, not the magical one), am I right? Something you can't say, something excluded, something forbidden, etc. Well, the purpose of this challenge is to write about a character or characters while avoiding the use of certain taboo phrases, characters, situations, etc. Each character, has their own list of taboos-generally things that are so often associated with them that it has become clichéd. In doing this, it's my hope that we'll be able to see completely new takes on characters.

- you can **NOT** in any way, shape or form use or mention any of the taboos in your story.

- words on the taboo list that appear inside quotations (i.e. "heart") are words that your story cannot include, but you can allude to them or substitute other words, however, words that are verbs (i.e. "laugh") are taboo no matter the verb tense.

- characters on the taboo list aren't to be mentioned by name or be otherwise alluded to."

Here was my assigned character and corresponding list of taboos:

**26. Ron Weasley - **_**Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, siblings, chess, quidditch, "red", "blimey"**_

I hoped you enjoyed it. You can send me feedback, ideas of what you would have done if you had received this prompt (I had a few others, but it was tricky. Who thinks of Ron if not in connection to his siblings, Harry or Hermione?), or just to say hi! Thanks for reading!


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